


it takes two (to do the things we do)

by rowenabane



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Blood, Character Death, Choking, Death, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Murder, Resurrection, Serial Killers, Stabbing, Temporary Character Death, Violence, um sexy murder I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:48:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26793151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowenabane/pseuds/rowenabane
Summary: Doyoung eyes are coals in a fire, just waiting to burn. “I will find out what you are.”Jaehyun gingerly grabs his glass of wine, watching the dark red liquid ripple with movement. He can see himself reflected in it, young and living. He takes a small sip and finds it uncommonly bitter. He rather wishes there was something sweeter to drink.“If I told you there would be no mystery,” he says over the rim of the glass. “What would be the fun in that?”
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung
Comments: 14
Kudos: 222
Collections: NCT Spookfest 2020





	it takes two (to do the things we do)

**Author's Note:**

> hi guys! a few warnings before you read:  
> \- this is about murder so there is LOTS of murder in this bad boy...um there's stabbing and drowning and various Methods of Making People Dead so if you are uncomfortable with so much of that please! do not read!  
> \- tw// suicide: there are mentions of suicide and a scene where a character fakes their death by k wording so PLEASE if you think that it might make you uncomfy don't read!! you come first homies!!!
> 
> anyways yeah apart from that hope you enjoy!! thank u for reading <3

The first time Doyoung kills Jaehyun, it’s outside the nightclub on Fifth Street. It’s a Friday, sticky in the July heat, the asphalt still slightly damp from a thunderstorm.

Jaehyun is sitting at the bar folding a napkin into a small paper flower when someone behind him curses. It's nothing new, not here, but something about the man’s voice makes him turn. Some lyrical quality. He turns and sees a man all in black, eyes narrowed at a girl with pink streaks in her hair and an empty glass in her hand. Jaehyun assumes the contents are now dripping down the front of the man’s black silk shirt. Expensive material.

Dark eyes, dark hair, pale skin. The man is like an oil painting still on the easel, the paint still dewy as it dries. There is a lyrical quality to the way he moves as well, something measured and restricted. It reminds Jaehyun of an animal in human skin.

“Watch where you're going,” the man hisses. The girl shrugs and walks away to join her gaggle of friends on the far side of the room, neon light painting her face into obscurity. The man watches her rejoin her friends with a thinly veiled layer of disgust.

Jaehyun can’t help it. He laughs softly and hides his smile behind his palm. The man’s eyes flicker to him, so dark that all the flashing lights seem like galaxies in his irises.

“What’s so funny,” the man hisses, coming closer. Jaehyun unfolds his napkin and hands it to him.

“You don't seem like you get out much,” Jaehyun says as the man dabs at his shirt. It looks even more expensive up close. “I’m Jaehyun. Nice to meet you.

Beautiful like a painting. The man scowls at him, and it is like seeing a Caravaggio come to life. “I don't feel compelled to give you my name, and I do not think it is nice to meet you.”

Jaehyun smiles. “It would be rude to not introduce yourself, darling,” he says. 

The man’s jaw works like he is chewing through rubber. His eye twitches. He sticks out a hand, and Jaehyun is mildly surprised to find it is gloved. “My name is Doyoung. Nice to meet you.”

Jaehyun smiles as he shakes his hand. His gloved grip is as strong as a vise.

…

He doesn't see Doyoung until he leaves, a little past midnight. The alley behind the nightclub has a sickly yellow glow from the one flickering light over the door, the single bulb being swarmed by mosquitos. Jaehyun shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans and slowly heads home. He pauses as someone walks behind him, footsteps slow and loud on the asphalt. Jaehyun turns and sees Doyoung, dark like a shadow.

“I don’t like to be laughed at,” Doyoung says.

“And I don’t like to be followed,” Jaehyun says calmly. He slides his hands out of his pockets.

Doyoung grabs the side of his head and slams it against the brick wall, sending stars racing through his vision like comets. Jaehyun slides to the ground, ears ringing, head pounding. Doyoung pushes him onto the ground with his shoe, the leather fine and shiny. Expensive.

“Nice shoes,” Jaehyun mutters, gingerly touching the side of his head. It comes away covered in blood. He blinks and suddenly Doyoung is pulling a knife out of his coat. 

Doyoung kneels and his knees brace against Jaehyun’s hips, the knife in his hand clean and smelling faintly of bleach. It's been used before. He places a hand on Jaehyun’s chest, drawing the thin material of his shirt between his fingers. 

“I said I don’t like to be laughed at,” Doyoung hisses, teeth bared. Jaehyun notices with a fair amount of amusement just how even his teeth are, how pink his lips. Soft, artistic, expensive. The animalistic expression only enhances the effect, a sharper contrast for comparison.

“Who said I was laughing at you?” Jaehyun says, smiling. “Maybe I was simply stunned by your beauty.”

Doyoung places the flat edge of the knife against Jaehyun’s cheek. “I also don’t like people that lie to me.”

Jaehyun grabs Doyoung’s thigh. “Who said I was lying, darling?”

Doyoung’s knuckles whiten around the handle of the knife but he does not move away. “You don't seem fazed that I’m about to kill you.”

Jaehyun raises an eyebrow and tilts his head just enough that the sharp edge of the blade rests against his bottom lip. He carefully presses his tongue to the metal and watches Doyoung’s eyes darken.

Doyoung swallows, imperceptible to the untrained eye. Jaehyun allows himself a rare flutter of giddiness at the realization that he has thrown him off.

“Tastes like stainless steel,” Jaehyun says playfully. He squeezes Doyoung’s thigh and this time he lets out a small, breathless laugh. Disbelief is written across every feature in his face, evident in his twinkling eyes and the sharp darting of his tongue over his teeth.

“What a stupidly brave man you are,” Doyoung eventually says. He removes the knife from Jaehyun’s skin and already he misses its cool proximity.

“Is that a good thing?” Jaehyun asks, heart soaring as Doyoung shifts his weight. 

Jaehyun isn't defenseless—if he wanted to, he could grab the knife and slice upward, right through Doyoung’s chest. The blood splatter would absolutely ruin his expensive shirt, but _my_ , wouldn't it be a sight to see?

Doyoung smirks, mouth almost coming up into a full smile. “Of course not.”

Doyoung slits his throat deep, halfway through his neck, and as Jaehyun spirals into the dark he allows himself a small, gurgling laugh. Doyoung’s shirt is ruined for sure.

…

Jaehyun wakes up a couple hours later, neck sore. Doyoung is gone. It is a pity, really, that they didn't get to spend more time together.

There's blood all down the front of his shirt, drying in his hair and on his skin. He stretches and heads home. The sun is just beginning to rise.

…

If Jaehyun could bottle the sheer joy he feels at this very moment, he could sell it for millions. Pure, unadulterated joy. Doyoung is holding the door open, mouth open in shock.

“How—you—” Doyoung swings the door open. “How are you here right now?”

Jaehyun folds his hands behind his back and rocks back on his heels, smiling. “The silk shirt, the leather shoes. A man of expensive tastes. I simply looked to see if there was someone named Doyoung living on the upper side of town.” He sighs. “It was a lot of work, darling. You could have just given me your number.”

Doyoung’s eyes flicker from shock to distrust to cold, calculating ruthlessness. He plasters on an incredibly fake smile and steps to the side. “Why don’t you come in?”

Jaehyun steps into the doorway. Doyoung lives in an expensive home, the walls tastefully adorned with absolutely nothing. Jaehyun has never cared very much for minimalism, but he can admire its efficiency. Fewer things to clean. Fewer things to sully.

Doyoung closes the door softly behind him. “May I ask how you survived?”

Jaehyun rests a hand on a small statuette of an owl, balanced precariously on a glass table. It's heavy. “Call it beginner’s luck. You should have cut me deeper.”

Doyoung grits his teeth. “I cut your throat all the way through your esophagus,” he says bluntly. “You don't have a mark on you.”

“Do you want to try again?” Jaehyun asks. He watches Doyoung go very still, his sweater hanging off his broad shoulders in looping folds. Beige—a very careful color, neutral. His feet are bare. Jaehyun has caught him by surprise.

Doyoung grabs the statuette off the table. “Don’t call me darling.”

Jaehyun grins and Doyoung hits him with the statuette. It is solid marble, quite heavy, and when it hits his skull, he can hear the breaking. Bone always seems so fragile when compared to any product of the earth. He remains standing long enough to see Doyoung’s eyes widen in panic, afraid of failure. He hits Jaehyun again and again and again, the statuette coming back covered in blood and flesh. Jaehyun hits the floor like a landslide pulled by gravity.

Ironic, really. Overkill.

…

“You really shouldn't have buried me,” Jaehyun says calmly, flipping through a book. He feels a slight pang of regret for not bothering to change out of his muddy clothes before sitting on Doyoung’s bed, but the sheer heart-stopping disbelief in his eyes truly justifies the mess. “It was such a pain to claw my way out of all that dirt.”

Doyoung crosses the room in several steps and wraps a hand around Jaehyun’s throat. His fingers are as cold as ice, steady and strong. The book goes tumbling to the floor.

“I cracked your skull open,” Doyoung growls, grip tightening, He pins Jaehyun to the bed with his knees, eyes blazing. “I scrambled your _fucking_ brains. Who are you? _What_ are you?”

Beneath all that fury there is desperation, the frenzied panic of a man who cannot understand something. Jaehyun likes to see it, this man who thinks he knows everything reduced to a fool in the dark. He smiles. “Sorry I got mud on your pillow, darling.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Doyoung says, breathing heavily. His hand is still wrapped around Jaehyun’s throat, forcing his pulse up into his ears, but he isn’t squeezing to kill, not yet. Jaehyun can see the calculation in his eyes—third times the charm, isn’t it?

“Go ahead and kill me again,” Jaehyun says, grinning. “Try your odds.”

Doyoung grits his teeth and does exactly what Jaehyun thought he would do: he wraps both hands around his throat and squeezes until Jaehyun is thrashing, the last unconscious attempt of a body to survive. The world around Jaehyun goes glittering and hazy like a kaleidoscope.

 _Still a painting,_ Jaehyun thinks before he finally slips away, watching Doyoung pant above him. Strands of hair hang over his eyes, swaying with movement. _Beautiful._

…

This time Doyoung dumps him in the bay, weighed down by a single large cinder block. He wakes up disoriented and floating, filled with mild panic. Underwater deaths are absolutely not something Jaehyun wants to do more than once.

He unties the rope and swims to the surface, pulling himself out of the bay like a creature from an old horror movie. Creature from the black lagoon, perhaps. Many leagues under the sea.

This time he goes home first. Takes a shower and changes his clothes. He sighs when he realizes that one of his favorite pairs of sneakers has gone the way of the fish.

…

“Fuck you,” Doyoung says when he sees Jaehyun sitting at his kitchen table. It's almost one in the morning and Doyoung is dressed to sleep: an oversized white shirt, a pair of gray sweatpants. Simple and understated. Jaehyun gives him a small smile.

“You have a nice kitchen,” he says smoothly. “I love your stone countertops.”

“What do you want from me?” Doyoung asks, backing away slowly. It is the first true sign of fear Jaehyun has seen in the man, and he doesn't miss the way Doyoung crosses his arms over his chest, angles his body away. Avoidance. Hesitation.

“You could stop killing me, for a start.” Jaehyun digs a finger into the grooved hardwood of the table. “I do love the attention, darling, but it makes for one hell of a day at the dry cleaners.”

Doyoung’s eyes flicker to the block of knives on the kitchen counter. Jaehyun can see the actions before he even makes them: a knife quickly dipped into skin like a hand in water, quick, painless, controlled. Moves, countermoves, protective measures.

Doyoung doesn't reach for the knives, though. He gives Jaehyun a blank stare, raising an eyebrow. “You’ll come back. Whatever I do, you'll come back.”

“I’ve always been a sucker for a boy with a nice smile,” Jaehyun says, scraping his nails against the table. Doyoung cringes at the sound.

“What am I supposed to do, then?” Doyoung asks. 

Jaehyun’s hands still on the wood. “What do you want to do?”

Doyoung smiles, sharp as a crocodile, and reaches for the knives.

…

This time Jaehyun wakes up in the woods, the grave Doyoung dug for him shallow and uncovered. He sits up and rubs at the back of his neck, grateful for the weak moonlight. He picks himself up out of the dirt, dismayed at his ruined jeans, surprised to find something tucked into his hand.

He uncurls his fingers to find a small, folded piece of paper. It has maintained its color, pure white throughout Jaehyun’s semi-burial, and when he unfolds it he finds neat, featureless handwriting. A date. A time. An address.

Jaehyun stretches, shrugging the weariness out of his spine. It is hard to believe that any man could stab another twenty times, even with such a small, thin knife, but he figures it is what it is.

Jaehyun heads home, and as he walks he folds the paper into a small, pointed star.

…

“Public,” Jaehyun muses, looking around the restaurant. It's small, Italian, and from all the gold lighting and high-quality marble flooring he can tell it caters to a very specific crowd. “Expensive. You either distrust me or want to impress me.”

Doyoung raises an eyebrow. A glass of wine is balanced in his hand, the red a dark contrast to his black suit, black tie. Jaehyun is only mildly underdressed—his suit jacket bears the telltale skid marks of a car accident from the 80s, threadbare at the elbows.

“You talk too much.”

The napkins on the table are fabric and don't hold a fold like a piece of paper would, but Jaehyun folds them all the same. He gives Doyoung a small, knowing smile. “Is it both?”

Doyoung’s lips thin. “I want to know what you are.”

Jaehyun folds the napkin in half, in thirds, in fourths. “You’re frustrated you can't kill me,” he says. “You don't like things you can't control.”

 _That_ makes Doyoung smile. “You make bold statements for a man that I can bury over and over again.”

“I'm not afraid of a little dirt.”

“I can always bury you deeper,” Doyoung says. The waiter comes by and refills Doyoung’s glass of wine. Jaehyun’s remains untouched. 

“For what reason?” Jaehyun says lightly. The napkin is beginning to come into its own inevitable shape. “I'll simply dig my way out.”

Doyoung’s eyes flare like matches, flicker like flame. “One day I’ll kill you in a way that you won't be able to come back from,” he says. It is a promise that fills Jaehyun with an indescribable joy. Doyoung obviously thinks very highly of himself.

“You flatter me, darling,” Jaehyun says. “All those people you killed, and yet you still can’t get me out of your head.”

Doyoung grips his fork with enough force to shatter it if he wished. “What do _you_ know about me?”

“Slit throats all across the city,” Jaehyun says calmly, gently folding the last edges of the napkin into a large, black rose. He holds it in his palm for Doyoung to appreciate. “They call you the Cut Throat Killer.”

Doyoung places his fork back on the table, careful not to let it clatter against the tablecloth. “It isn't very imaginative,” he mumbles, sipping his wine. Jaehyun smiles, pulling the rose apart. It comes unfolded in a single sweeping fold of fabric.

“What would you like them to call you?”

Doyoung eyes are coals in a fire, just waiting to burn. “I _will_ find out what you are.”

Jaehyun gingerly grabs his glass of wine, watching the dark red liquid ripple with movement. He can see himself reflected in it, young and living. He takes a small sip and finds it uncommonly bitter. He rather wishes there was something sweeter to drink.

“If I told you there would be no mystery,” he says over the rim of the glass. “What would be the fun in that?”

…

That night Doyoung takes Jaehyun back to his expensive house with the white walls, everything scrubbed clean of any blood or mess that Jaehyun had unwittingly left behind. The hallway is white, pristine, the owl statuette gleaming. The hardwood table is spotless, which is remarkable. The house doesn't even smell of bleach—just air and dish soap and cinnamon. An odd combination but soothing nonetheless, speaking of a crisp comfort that belies familiarity.

That night Doyoung holds a knife to Jaehyun’s throat and kisses him, as if he is unsure how to do one thing without threatening another. He holds the blade flat against his neck, metal cold as starlight, his lips warm as summer sun. He tastes just like Jaehyun had imagined: rich like leather, the finest fruits and flowers. A garden in decay, even more beautiful as it rots into unnatural sweetness.

That night Doyoung kisses Jaehyun and he kisses him back, the moonlight pouring into the bedroom like paint. Jaehyun kisses Doyoung until the knife tumbles from his hand and lodges itself in the carpet, a muffled thud in the background.

 _Cut Throat Killer, indeed,_ Jaehyun muses as he pulls off Doyoung’s suit jacket. He shivers beneath Jaehyun’s touch, silk shirt thin, skin pale.

Doyoung doesn't kill Jaehyun. Not tonight. They have other, more important things to attend to.

…

Jaehyun wakes early the next morning and sits in the kitchen, folding a brochure on the table into a tight, spiraling box. He’s almost done when Doyoung comes into the kitchen, silent. He makes himself a cup of coffee and pulls a knife out of its wooden block. He allows Jaehyun to finish his box and set it down on the wood, a multicolored atrocity of thoughtful design.

Doyoung sighs and walks around Jaehyun, placing a hand on his shoulder and then bracing it beneath his chin. There is something intimate about the way Doyoung kills, has killed, will kill—there is something soothing in the way he touches those marked for death, as if he is leading a wounded animal to slaughter. He knows it is hurting, has a right to live, yet still cannot stop the inevitable.

Doyoung places his other hand flat on Jaehyun’s head, gently leaning his head back against his chest. Throat, exposed. From here Jaehyun can see the tired circles beneath his eyes, his slightly chapped lips. 

“Nothing personal,” Doyoung says, placing the blade against Jaehyun’s neck. “Just need some time to think.”

Jaehyun grins at him. “Take your time, darling.”

Doyoung’s lips thin in a small approximation of a smile and he slits his throat. Again.

…

Jaehyun wakes up a couple hours later, maybe around noon, in the woods. Doyoung had the foresight to put him somewhere quiet and secluded, not buried but resting on the grass as if he had simply chosen to lie there. Jaehyun stretches his neck back and forth, the skin slightly tender. If anything can be said about Doyoung, it is that he always cuts deep.

He stands. The paper box is in his hand, slightly crumpled but still maintaining the integrity of its folds. Curled inside is a single, tiny wildflower, so delicate it might as well be dead.

...

Jaehyun takes his time. He goes home. He takes a shower, eats lunch, watches a little television. He relegates his nice shirt to the trash can, along with his jacket. They both bear the unavoidable signs of slaughter, and it does no good to bring yet another bloody shirt to the laundromat. The Cut Throat Killer is loose, after all. He could be anywhere.

Jaehyun tinkers around his apartment with no true aim. He goes to bed but still lies awake and thinks of Doyoung, a devil in human skin, perfect and lush and ravenous. In the mornings he reads about a new killing, another gruesome death relegated to sensation by journalists on the scene. No photos, though. Nobody wants to _see_ what Doyoung does.

He does this in cycles for the better part of a week—wake, think, sleep. It is obvious what he plans to do; it is obvious that he and Doyoung are two ends of a one-way road. One way through both of them, nowhere to go but through each other.

Unstoppable force. Immovable object. Jaehyun wonders which one Doyoung would consider himself to be.

…

“I never killed anyone that didn’t deserve it,” Doyoung says on his doorstep. It is a Friday morning, slightly overcast from a storm on the coast, and Jaehyun is amused that Doyoung took the time to find him. 

“Your definition of ‘deserve’ must be vastly different from mine, darling,” Jaehyun replies, letting him in. He doesn’t ask how Doyoung found him—a quick shuffle through his wallet would have provided all the identification necessary.

Doyoung huffs, looking around Jaehyun’s apartment. It isn't anything like the house Doyoung lives in—it trades minimalism for eccentricity, luxury for creature comforts. At least one wall is just exposed brick, and from it hangs several things: family photos, paintings and sketches, newspaper clippings of old, old crimes.

Doyoung moves like a wary visitor in a poisonous garden, afraid that anything he touches may be deadly. He picks up a small, deformed piece of metal lying on the windowsill, squinting. “What’s this?”

“A bullet,” Jaehyun says, plucking it from his hand and placing it back where it was. It sits among several other oddities, not all of them immediately recognizable. A piece of glass. A corroded knife. A jar of dirt. All things left behind, foreign in a body that eventually expelled them.

“Hm.”

“Were you going to kill the girl at that nightclub?” Jaehyun asks, opening the window to let in some air. Doyoung scowls.

“I don’t kill women.”

“Any particular reason why?” Jaehyun asks, leaning out the window. He waves at his elderly neighbor, walking her dog on the street below. 

“I have no reason to.” Doyoung eyes the window warily. “You should close that.”

Jaehyun raises an eyebrow. “My home, my rules, darling.”

This is something Doyoung understands. He crosses his arms and paces around the room, fingers drumming against his elbow. He stops, bends slightly to look at something, keeps going. A bird in a cage, fluttering against the bars.

“Is there something you need?” Jaehyun asks, watching Doyoung circle his living room for the third time. “Something you want?”

“No.” Doyoung pulls a framed newspaper off the wall. It's a headliner about a serial killer in the 90s, almost an antiquity. He frowns at it, eyebrows creasing.

“You’re not a very good liar,” Jaehyun says, sinking into his worn sofa. He pauses. “Darling.”

Doyoung’s shoulders stiffen. “I want to know your secret.”

“You already do.”

“No, I don’t.” Doyoung comes to the sofa, stands over him. “Why can’t I kill you? What makes you different?”

Immovable object. Unstoppable force. Vice versa.

“I guess I cheated death one too many times and he got angry with me,” Jaehyun says calmly. “Seems a very logical explanation.”

Doyoung doesn’t sit, just keeps drumming his fingers against his elbow. He’s wearing a dark T-shirt, plain cotton. There’s a faded logo on it from some band Jaehyun is not familiar with, and the sleeves hug his arms where they are pressed against his body. Jaehyun reaches up and grabs the hem, rubbing it between his fingers. Doyoung smells faintly like cinnamon.

The truth is this: Jaehyun doesn't have a secret. One day he woke up and found he could not die and was mildly shocked in the way one is when they find a strand of gray hair. It was just another change, another cycle, another metamorphosis to complete. It's been decades now, but the rhythms had been easy, like swimming in clear currents on a summer afternoon. Thoughtless.

Immovable object.

“The police will catch you,” Jaehyun says mildly, slipping his fingers against Doyoung’s waist. “You’re too careless.”

“Careless?” Doyoung scoffs. “I am meticulous in my work.”

 _Meticulous._ That is the way to describe Doyoung, one word for a diamond-faceted man. Everything Doyoung does is done with care and thought, any incompletion planned, every mistake accounted for. He kills Jaehyun in an alleyway, no witnesses. He bludgeons him to death in the hallway, no blood. He stabs him and polishes the knives, no mess.

He takes him home and kisses him, then kills him the next morning. No attachments.

“Not meticulous enough,” Jaehyun says. Doyoung’s skin is cold. “After all, _I’m_ still here.”

“Hm.” Doyoung puts a knee on the sofa. “That’s true.”

Doyoung stays the rest of the day and all of the night, puttering around Jaehyun’s apartment like a ghost. Eventually, he lets Jaehyun pin him to the mattress and kiss him, the headlights from cars on the street dancing across the ceiling like strobe lights. Doyoung won’t kill him here—Jaehyun knows that. It would be too impolite, too strange, too prone to error.

Lying in bed together, Jaehyun pulls a stack of papers out of his dresser: news clippings from 20, 30, 40 years back. He goes through them carefully and says _this time I was murdered. This time it was an accident. This time I had to pretend._

Doyoung rests his head on his chest and picks a small obituary from the clippings. He regards it coolly, taking in the bleak tone, the sunny photo, the fake name. _Suicide,_ it reads.

“Were you alive when they buried you?” Doyoung asks, throwing the paper on the bed.

“Not yet.” Jaehyun puts the papers away. “It took me a couple of days to come back together.”

Jaehyun remembers it, that awful resurrection. He had asked specifically not to be placed in a coffin, had asked for the most natural burial possible, but someone had not listened. He remembers waking up 6 feet under the earth, ensconced in oak and clay. He remembers having to claw his way out, fingernails tearing. A terrible inconvenience. 

The next time he had to fake his death, he simply flung himself off a cliff into the sea in front of a park full of witnesses.

Unstoppable force.

Doyoung huffs, as if the answer is enough and not enough at the same time. He closes his eyes and is asleep moments later, lips parted, eyelashes fluttering over closed eyelids. His cheeks have a faint red tinge to them, flushed like spring roses. His shirt is rumpled, his hair mussed.

Jaehyun stares at the lights on the dark ceiling, flickering as if filtered through a kaleidoscope. Immovable and unstoppable.

…

If you love the devil enough, it no longer becomes the devil. It just becomes another facet of life, another creature in the shadows. Jaehyun rather likes the devil: the devil is very clean. The devil enjoys soft music, ballads and instrumentals. The devil only ever tries to kill him on Wednesdays, and immediately afterward kisses him as if he has hidden something important in his throat. It’s not love but damn if it isn't close, an emotion on a spectrum of very similar, dangerous emotions.

Jaehyun tracks mud on Doyoung’s clean white floors and he threatens to behead him and shove him in the closet until he comes back. Jaehyun just shrugs.

They have breakfast while Doyoung threatens to impale the overly cheerful mailman on the garden stakes in the yard. Jaehyun sips his coffee and sighs. 

“Darling, you know you can't kill the mailman. It's not his fault your package hasn't arrived.”

Doyoung’s eyes darken. “It was supposed to come a week ago.”

“What is it?” Jaehyun asks. He opens the newspaper and skims the front page: something about terror on the streets, the Cut Throat Killer still at large, etc. He tears off the page and folds it in half, folding it. He is rather hoping he can turn it into a swan.

“If I told you then you would have to die,” Doyoung says flatly. Jaehyun smiles at that.

“Oh darling,” he says. “I am eagerly awaiting the day.”

Doyoung’s package arrives the next afternoon. It turns out the devil is very fond of mugs shaped like cats.

…

Jaehyun knows Doyoung will be caught eventually, but he still plays the game. He plays the game because it's fun, because everything dulls without it. He plays the game because he can't _not_ play the game. He plays the game because the game is what makes him feel alive.

Cat and mouse. Unstoppable, immovable, going round in circles.

They slow dance in Doyoung’s kitchen, 80’s music playing softly on the radio. They go to the park and take photos with the flowers, daisies and sunflowers. They watch old movies on the thinly upholstered couch in his apartment, thrillers and comedy. They have all the trappings of love and romance, but the core of their relationship is, and always will be, death.

Jaehyun plays the game. He lavishes in it like a cat in the sun, takes each day as it comes. He wakes up next to Doyoung most mornings and reads about his latest murder in the morning news. 

Song and dance. Immovable, unstoppable, always the same tune.

…

There is a knock on Jaehyun's apartment door. He barely hears it above the pounding din of thunder and rain but it is there nonetheless, soft and imploring. He opens the door and sees Doyoung in a long black coat, black gloves, water running down his face. 

Jaehyun gives him a small smile and he glares at him, stumbling over the threshold. Water drips into the carpet, rust red.

“They caught me by surprise,” Doyoung says, dazed. The water goes from rusty to crimson to black. “I didn’t think—”

Jaehyun swoops forward and catches Doyoung just as he pitches forward, hand clutched to his side. He drops his head into Jaehyun’s shoulder, shivering.

“Darling,” Jaehyun whispers. “Oh, darling.”

He sweeps a hand under Doyoung’s knees and carries him to the bathtub, gently setting him down on the tile. Doyoung’s coat pools around him, red and black. Jaehyun peels it off his shoulders as he shivers.

“You should be more careful,” Jaehyun scolds gently as he unbuttons Doyoung’s shirt. He hisses as the material pulls free from the open wound on his ribs, eyes narrowing. 

“I am careful,” Doyoung grumbles, grimacing as Jaehyun dabs at the wound with a cloth. He sticks his fist in his mouth and bites down as Jaehyun pours alcohol onto the wound, letting out a muffled cry of pain. Jaehyun smooths his hair away from his face.

“Not careful enough, darling,” Jaehyun says. “Were you followed?”

“Probably,” Doyoung gasps. His face scrunches up in pain as Jaehyun bandages the wound. It's a surface scrape, likely from a bullet just skimming the skin. Lots of blood and pain but not much else.

Jaehyun sits back on his heels, hands bloody. Doyoung is panting, hair plastered to his forehead, but through the haze of pain his eyes are feral and sharp. “You know the police will come here.”

Doyoung lets out a harsh, dry laugh. “Will they?”

Unstoppable force.

Jaehyun almost smiles. “You’ve been setting me up this entire time, haven't you?”

He presses a hand to Doyoung’s freshly bandaged side, digging his thumb into the gauze until he curses. “Very smart. _Meticulous_ , darling.”

It’s at least partially his fault, Jaehyun thinks. He could have left the first time Doyoung killed him, did not have to seek him out like a fox does a bird’s nest. At any point he could have simply vanished, dead to the seeing eye, far from Doyoung’s touch. Damn if he doesn’t have a weakness for pretty, deadly things, creatures with one purpose. He was on this road the moment he saw Doyoung that night in the nightclub—a vision in black, a dreamlike depiction of a grim reaper.

“It won't do you any harm,” Doyoung gasps. “It won’t do you any harm at all.”

And it won’t, not really. Jaehyun is an expert at running away, is intimately familiar with the wheels he must turn. The plan is there, the opportunity ripe for the picking, and all he has to do is reach out and take it. 

“Do you still want to kill me? Make it permanent?” Jaehyun asks, pulling off Doyoung’s coat. It's heavy with water and blood. 

Doyoung’s eyes are a fire that can never be put out. “A part of me always will.”

Immovable object. Jaehyun grabs Doyoung’s hand and dips it in the mix of blood and water, then presses it to the wall.

…

Everything Jaehyun wants or needs goes into a small backpack he keeps under his bed. He gives it to Doyoung and gives him a date, a time, a place. Doyoung nods, face pale but eyes dark.

The police come. They slam at his door, many voices hiding behind one. He holds the deformed bullet up to the light, a small token he cannot take with him. There’s a knife in his hand, heavy, taken from Doyoung’s kitchen. It smells faintly like bleach, absolutely clean. No evidence there. Nothing for conviction.

“This is the police!” The voice on the other side of the door yells. “Open up!”

A paper swan on the table. A cup of coffee and a newspaper. Doyoung’s bloody handprints all over his bathroom wall. 

Jaehyun stands in the middle of the living room and watches as the door strains along its hinges. It blows in with force, enough to make the wood splinter and crack at the corners, and police come rushing in already armed. They pause, faces hidden.

“Freeze!” 

Jaehyun holds his hands up, the knife glinting. He takes a calm, steadying breath. 

“You found me,” Jaehyun says smoothly. He smiles. “I’m the Cut Throat Killer.”

Riotous noise. Jaehyun draws the knife along his throat and cuts deep, all the way through, just like Doyoung always used to do. Blood spurts in waves and the knife falls from his hands. Poetic justice.

Jaehyun isn’t around to see what they find, but he knows what they will see. Every newspaper clipping about the Cut Throat Killer folded into origami, a set of polished knives in the kitchen, a torn and bloody coat, blood in the tub. His confession is just icing on the cake, even if his case never makes it to court. 

Being dead has never been more comforting.

…

It takes Jaehyun 3 whole days to come back. He was dead through the autopsy, officially dead, and now he waltzes right out of the morgue and into the woods. His bag is lying in the shallow grave Doyoung once dug for him, and he pulls out some new clothes, some money.

Out of the city. A date, a time, a place.

…

Doyoung’s hair is not as dark as it was before: it’s been dyed a cherry red, just enough to change the overall effect of his face. It makes him look warmer, less dead than he supposedly is.

“Three days,” Doyoung muses on their shared train trip out of the country. “Slow.”

“I didn’t want to wake up in the middle of an autopsy, darling,” Jaehyun says. “It would have been rather unpleasant.”

“The city is buzzing that you were caught.” Doyoung gives him a sharp grin. “The Cut Throat Killer no more, taking his own life in the manner of his victims.”

“I always did have a flair for the dramatic.” He drinks in the sight of Doyoung—faded T-shirt, jeans, leather jacket—and smiles. “How does it feel to be the Cut Throat Killer’s last victim?”

Doyoung inhales slowly, eyes glittering. “Comforting.”

The countryside whizzes by.

…

They spend long nights in a motel by an old, lonely road. The neon sign is old and fading and there are few travelers, which suits them just fine.

Jaehyun pulls a page out of a newspaper detailing his death and folds it in half, sideways, keeps folding. He hears the bathroom door open and Doyoung emerges with a cloud of steam, toweling his hair. He tilts the paper to read the words along the seam of the fold.

_The Cut Throat Killer, also known as Jung Jaehyun, still leaves tremors in the city’s recent memory. His last victim is believed to be 24-year-old Kim Doyoung, who went missing shortly before Jung was confronted. It is unfortunate that his body may never be recovered due to lack of information, but the search continues—_

“What are you folding?” Doyoung asks, throwing the towel onto a nearby chair.

Jaehyun shrugs, wordless. Doyoung climbs onto the bed and wraps his arms around Jaehyun’s waist. He rests his head on his chest, the two of them sliding together like perfect halves of an imperfect whole. Jaehyun kisses the top of Doyoung’s head, his hair slightly damp from the shower.

Unstoppable force. Immovable object. 

He plays the game. He plays the game with all the skill and dexterity of a master. Jaehyun watches Doyoung’s eyes flutter shut, skin scrubbed clean, mouth forming words that he does not give voice to.

“What are you thinking?”

“Maybe if I removed your heart,” Doyoung says tiredly, ear pressed to Jaehyun’s sternum. “Removed and burned it. Maybe that would kill you.”

The game continues.

Jaehyun continues folding the scrap of paper, tucking the jagged edge inside a fold. The paper goes from flat and featureless to the spitting image of an owl. The tiny folds create the illusion of feathers, of large round eyes, an inquisitive face. He places it on the nightstand and it perches, watchful, beside a digital alarm clock.

“Maybe,” Jaehyun echoes. “Would you like to try it?”

Doyoung looks up at him, eyes as dark as the sky, as oil, as every nighttime Jaehyun has ever experienced distilled into a bottle. He smiles slightly, mouth twitching up at the corner.

“Maybe tomorrow,” he sighs, craning his neck to kiss Jaehyun’s cheek. He turns off the lamp and darkness swells over them like a crashing wave.

Jaehyun smiles into the night and draws Doyoung tightly into his arms. His skin is so, so warm. “Maybe.”

“I’ll figure it out one of these days,” Doyoung murmurs into his skin. “I _will_.”

Jaehyun laughs quietly. “Take your time, darling.”


End file.
